Five Times Jack Saved Mac
by aqaws321
Summary: And one time Mac saved Jack. Prompt: Can you write about five times Mac got captured and Jack had to save him (varying degrees of torture because I just love angst situations and then hurt/comfort) and the one time the situation was reversed?


**For AndiKaneUnderwood, over at . Full prompt at bottom.**

 **The stories are in chronological order, but set up as a series of short stories, and as such, are told in different styles. This fic was actually pretty interesting for me to write, because of that. I love experimenting, and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. So, thanks for putting up with the changes in style :)**

 **The last story is set after Mac and Jack have been working for the DXS for a while, but before Nikki joins their team.**

 **Warnings: Torture, but nothing too graphic, and nothing sexual. There definitely isn't anything in here that would merit an 'M' rating. In the section marked '3', there is a bit of talk about death. However, the death is of minor characters, and isn't explicit or onscreen.**

 **Not sure if Jack knows Russian in canon, but in this story, he does.**

 **On a side note, I really, really like Skillet. The band, I mean. The cooking utensil is pretty good too I guess though.**

 **EDIT 1/22/17: I've gotten a few comments about the length of these, and the fact that each could potentially be made into their own story. Here's a few of the reasons that they were like this:**

 **1\. There's only so many different plots one can come up with before it becomes repetitive. Because I have a few stories in mind that will need plots, I want to be able to use those plots for those stories. One thing I really try not to do is become repetitive with my plots, and if I used a bunch of different plots here, then I wouldn't be able to use them elsewhere, if that makes sense.**

 **2\. For these stories, I decided to focus on the actual _rescuing_ aspect of the story instead of the background details. I provided the relevant information to set the scene, but, essentially, these were purely about the rescues. **

**3\. I don't have the time. There's a lot of other things that I have to do in real life, as well as other stories I want to write. I might go back and expand on these someday to include more than the rescues, but for now, they will remain like this.**

* * *

 **1:**

They've been working for the DXS for all of three months when it happens. They're in the middle of a mission in Russia, everything's going smoothly- until Mac goes to meet their contact while Jack watches from a rooftop and the man turns out to be a spy.

As a result, Jack's forced to watch as the younger agent is quickly subdued and dragged off to the nearby army base.

Now, in a situation like this, Jack knows, things might seem hopeless. However, he's been trained for this sort of thing- formulating a plan and performing it, no matter the odds.

First things first: he takes stock of the situation. They're in a tiny town, and the military base is barely even big enough to be called a base. It's obviously unimportant, with only ten soldiers in the entire place. Honestly, Jack's pretty sure it should just be called an outpost.

It takes him a full day to be ready, since they took Mac when it was almost night, and Jack has to wait for it to be night again. He waits, but he isn't happy about it.

When he's finally able to put his plan into action, it goes off without a hitch. Jack sneaks inside the outpost- and finds himself right outside the lab room where the Russians- according to their intel from the guy that _wasn't_ a traitor- have some top-secret plans for new missiles.

Jack ducks inside the room and quickly inserts the USB drive that is part of the standard DXS agent equipment. According to the outfitters, there's no telling when one will have to download top-secret information (Jack thought it was weird at first, but. Well. Look at what's happening now.). It only takes a few minutes for everything to download. Once it's finished, Jack follows the signs in Russian that eventually lead him in the direction of the detention level.

Who knew that learning Russian in high school would help him now?

When he reaches the detention level, things are- mercifully- silent. This means that there's no guards to deal with, which means a higher chance of both Jack and MacGyver escaping without alerting the Russians, which is always a good thing.

Jack opens the door to one of the two cells, wondering why it isn't locked. When he swings the door open, the answer stares him in the face.

MacGyver is handcuffed to a chair, seemingly unconscious. His normally blond hair is stained a light brown from blood, and there's an abandoned tub filled with water in the corner. This, together with Mac's damp clothing, is enough to tell Jack what's happened. Swallowing down his anger, Jack walks to his friend and crouches behind him, sliding the skeleton key that the DXS agents are equipped with from his pocket. He quickly frees his friend, who almost hits the ground before Jack catches him.

They make it out of the outpost without a problem, but the real scare is later, when they have to wait ten hours for extraction. MacGyver suffers hypothermia, and, later, pneumonia.

It's one of the worst missions they've ever gone on.

* * *

 **2:**

Jack doesn't like remembering the time that MacGyver had been captured by a- for lack of a better term- mad scientist. The man had been working for a small, independent corporation that was attempting to engineer a super human. The scientist had decided that he needed to find out the limits of the human body, so the corporation found someone to be the lab rat.

MacGyver.

By the time the DXS had found the agent's location and Jack had been able to get there with a team, the blond had been in captivity for six days. Six days that had taken a definite, unmistakable toll on him.

He told Jack later what he had had to endure. The scientist had tested how far and how long he could run, how much physical exertion he could take before he collapsed- all under different conditions. Some of these conditions included being deprived of water for hours, being shot and forced to continue, and others.

Jack was hard pressed not to visit the scientist- who was in custody- and put him through a bit of the pain that Mac had been through.

* * *

 **3:**

The mission? Terrorists.

Their goal? Bombing the White House.

MacGyver and Jack and a hacker that had been assigned to their team- a new recruit named Nikki- were sent to take the compound, and the terrorists, down. Since the terrorist group operated largely through tech, Nikki was supposed to implant a virus on one of the computers- a particularly nasty piece of work that would take down the entire network as well as the terrorists defenses- and MacGyver and Jack had come up with a plan to get her inside.

Everything had gone well, until Nikki accidentally triggered an alarm while she was hacking. She had quickly finished her job, shutting down the alarm as well, but it was too late. The trio made it within a few turns of the compound exit when Mac had blurted out, "I'll hold them off, you take her and get out!"

Jack had protested loudly, of course. He knew that his friend, if captured, would be in grave danger. The younger agent, however, had shouted right back at Jack, saying that they didn't have time to argue.

Sadly, it was true.

Jack had gotten Nikki out of the compound and to their campground, then immediately set about radioing for backup.

He would need it.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

It had taken the virus six hours to completely take down the terrorists' system- which meant that when backup arrived, seven hours after Mac had been captured, Jack was wildly impatient.

It took the team no more than ten minutes to infiltrate the compound.

It took them considerably longer to find MacGyver.

The blond had been shut in a small, damp, out-of-the-way cell deep in the basement of the compound. He was roughed up, yes, but when Jack gave him a quick once-over, he found, to his relief, that the kid seemed relatively unharmed- at least compared to some of the other times he'd been captured.

Other than the younger man being uncommonly quiet on the ride home and in debrief, Jack could find nothing wrong with the kid. When Mac didn't bounce back to his usual self after a few hours, Jack began to go over what had happened.

MacGyver had been relieved to see him. That, in and of itself, was not uncommon. What _was_ uncommon was the way he kept his shoulders hunched, his gaze fixed on the floor, and- perhaps most telling- was the way that he was still.

MacGyver was never still.

Jack waited until they were at his house- MacGyver always stayed over after one of them had been captured on a mission- to talk to him.

"What's the matter, brother?" Jack collapsed on the couch and watched his friend putter around the kitchen, poking aimlessly around in the cabinets. When the younger man didn't answer, Jack sat up and repeated his question. "What's going on, Mac?"

The blond shuffled into the living room and sank into the vacant armchair, rubbing at his forehead. When he didn't even try to deny that something was bothering him, Jack knew something was seriously wrong. Finally, Mac spoke. "They, uh, they made me watch some videos. Of the sites they had hit before we stopped them. And of other places that different terrorists had hit."

Jack swallowed down his fury. Getting mad at something he couldn't do anything about now wasn't going to be productive in this situation. He listened silently to his friend as Mac continued to talk. "There was just- there was so much _death_. How can anyone be that evil? They just killed innocent people to prove their point."

Jack sighed. He studied his hands as he began to talk. "I know, kid. I know. But that's why we do what we do, why we keep putting ourselves in danger to stop these people. Whatever else happens, there's always gonna be horrible, sick people in the world that don't care for- or respect- life. We gotta accept that.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should just lie down and let them do whatever, but we can't let fear or disgust or whatever rule our lives, because if it does, then they win."

MacGyver sighed, leaning back in his chair."I know. It's just so _sad_."

Jack rubbed his hand over his eyes. "Yeah," he said softly, "It is."

* * *

 **4:**

Darkness around him, silence consuming him, all touch foreign.

There was nothing but the pain. The pain and his own mind, telling him that he'd been abandoned, completely left behind, by everyone. After all, Jack wouldn't have let him stay here for this long, would he?

Would he?

No.

His breathing picked up. He didn't know how he knew, but he decided that he could vaguely feel the heaving of his chest.

He stayed like that for- he didn't know how long. There was no sense of the passage of time. Seconds were minutes were hours were days were weeks were months were years because there was no time there was only-

Darkness around him, silence consuming him, all touch foreign.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Jack found the tiny room in horror. What he had been suspecting since listening to the drug cartel's leader boast about the prisoner they'd captured- MacGyver- was confirmed.

Jack would give quite a bit to make it so that it wasn't real. But he couldn't.

MacGyver had been shut in a small room for- according to the cartel leader- five hours. The room was completely dark and soundproof, and the younger man had been gagged, preventing him from making any noise whatsoever.

They had completely deprived him of his senses for five full hours.

Jack swallowed in revulsion. This was worse than the time MacGyver had been blinded and deafened by a drug, a situation that he had prayed they would never have to be in.

Working quickly, Jack and his team removed Mac from the room. Jack had to force down his anger when he saw the way MacGyver cringed from any contact, the way he squeezed his eyes tightly shut at the dim light emitting from the tiny overhead light, and the way he covered his ears with his hands and flinched whenever a noise above a whisper sounded.

When the doctor that had accompanied the retrieval team tried to touch him to examine him, MacGyver- for lack of a better phrase- completely flipped out.

MacGyver immediately started struggling, forcing a few more members of the team- and Jack- to try to calm him, which quickly turned to subduing him to keep the young man from injuring anyone- including himself. After a moment, the doctor turned to her field kit and pulled a syringe out of a small case. She inserted it into Mac's neck and pressed the plunger before Jack could stop her.

At the brunet's accusing look, she shrugged. "He would've hurt someone, and this way, I can examine him while we head back to a hospital."

Jack couldn't argue with that.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

By the time MacGyver returned to consciousness, his body had begun to shake off the effects of his captivity. He was able to squint up at Jack, at least, and didn't flinch when Jack whispered, "How you feeling?"

MacGyver didn't speak for a second. Then he said, "You came."

Jack let a shaky grin spread across his face. "Yeah. I always do."

MacGyver nodded, slipping back into sleep, obviously exhausted. As he left the waking world, he slurred. "I know."

* * *

 **5:**

It's a full twenty-seven hours before they hear from the man that took MacGyver. He had tranquilized him as he was heading to the point where he was supposed to meet Jack after finishing his part of the mission, and his absence hadn't been noticed until around an hour after he was taken.

Jack hasn't stopped berating himself for that since it happened.

When Riley receives the email, she straightens up in her seat, and, without the younger woman needing to say a word, Thornton motions for the Phoenix Foundation agents to start trying to find the location of the computer from where the email was sent.

Jack moves behind his friend's seat, peering over her shoulder as she opens the email. There's two sentences and an attachment, which has begun loading. Riley reads the words aloud, Jack following silently along. "You have twenty hours to wire two million dollars to this address. If you try to rescue him, he dies."

Riley clicks on the attachment.

It's a picture of MacGyver. He's handcuffed to a chair and normally, he'd be able to escape without a problem, but from what Jack can tell, he's drugged with something heavy. A sign with the number of a bank account written on it has been propped in his lap, his hands clutching it loosely, and his head is barely high enough for Jack to notice the large bruise around his left eye, swelling it almost completely shut.

He does notice it, though.

One of the techs shouts, "Got it!"

Thornton turns to the man immediately. "Where's it from?"

He scribbles out an address on a piece of paper and hands it to his boss, who turns to Jack, saying, "There's a team waiting for you in the hangar. You got this?"

Jack nods wordlessly, taking the piece of paper as he turns to leave the room. Before he exits, Riley grabs his sleeve. She looks very young as she says, "Bring him home, Jack."

Jack swallows. "Yeah," he says softly. "That's the plan."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

By the time they touch down in the slums of Kolkata, a few blocks away from the location of the computer that sent the email, Jack's impatient and ready to find his partner. It's been a grueling seventeen hours- over five hours faster than a civilian plane would take, but still too long in Jack's opinion- since they received the email.

Time's running out.

The team has civilian clothes on, blending in as much as possible with the people that frequent this place. Children- barefoot, wearing ragged clothing- stare at them as they pass by.

The team reaches the house in a few minutes. The team leader- a highly experienced, former black ops man by the name of Smith- counts down silently, then signals.

They burst into the house, guns pointed at anything that even remotely resembled a threat.

When they reach the kitchen- it only takes them a few seconds- there's a middle-aged, slightly balding man working on a laptop at the table. He's got a shifty gleam in his eye, and, across from him, MacGyver's handcuffed to the same chair as he was in the video.

The blond's head is resting against his chest, and Jack moves towards him immediately. The brunet ignores the commotion behind him as he grabs the handcuff keys resting on the countertop and uses them to unlock his friend's restraints.

As he works, Mac raises his head, peering at him through bleary eyes. He slurs, "Knew y'd come."

Jack permits himself a small grin as he unlocks the final handcuff. "Course I was gonna come. You thought some amatuer was gonna fool us?"

MacGyver smiles back, a loopy grin that makes Jack want to get him checked out so they can find out what, exactly, he was drugged with. Gently, he helps his friend stand. "Let's go home."

* * *

 **+1:**

Jack couldn't remember the last time he had been in this much pain. His head was throbbing, his arm was resting at a weird angle, and the man was pretty sure he had at least two broken ribs.

At least it was him this time instead of MacGyver.

Jack sagged back against the wall of the small cell he had been thrown in. He and MacGyver had been sent to retrieve some information from the base of the head of the biggest drug-trafficking ring in South America. Turns out that the leaders of drug rings didn't like it when they caught someone stealing information from their bases.

Who knew?

Jack chuckled to himself, albeit a bit deliriously. He might be the one that was beat up and in pain, but the joke was on Juarez, the ringleader, because Mac had been able to get out with the information while Jack had distracted the guards.

In fact, the backup he had no doubt called should be arriving any time now.

True to Jack's estimation, in no more than ten minutes American soldiers had swarmed the compound, the information that Mac had retrieved giving them the grounds they needed to attack the base.

Jack could hear the commotion outside. Patiently, he waited.

A few minutes later, the door to his cell slammed open, and there stood Mac, in all his scrawny, blond-haired, blue-eyed glory.

Jack let out a laugh as a sudden thought came to him. MacGyver, who by this time had made it to his side and was trying to determine if the man could walk by himself, looked at Jack with a worried expression. "What?"

Jack grinned. "Just thinking. With all the times I've had to rescue you, it must be quite the experience to not be the one who needs saving, huh?"

MacGyver lightly shoved his shoulder, saying, "Shut up, Jack."

His answering grin was full of mirth, though, and, more noticeably, relief. He helped the older man get up, slinging Jack's arm over his shoulders as they walked out of the compound.

Jack and Mac would always come for each other, no matter what.

* * *

 **Prompt: Can you write about five times Mac got captured and Jack had to save him (varying degrees of torture because I just love angst situations and then hurt/comfort) and the one time the situation was reversed?**

 **Hope you enjoyed!**

 **The time that MacGyver was blinded and deafened by a drug that is referenced to in the section marked '5' is a reference to my other story, called "How to Let Mysterious Scientists and Substances Ruin Your Day."**


End file.
